And I'm standing there, looking down on this beautiful creature, holding that heavy thumbs down raised in my hand. 

It's looking up at me with its huge, soulful eyes, and I cant bring myself to smash it. 

'It's not a dystopia', growls a voice in the back of my head. 'You must crush it with your heavy thumbs down! It is in violation of the writing prompts!' 

'But it's so good! The structure is perfect! The dialogue flows smoothly! It's fun and exciting and sweet! It's... Trekkie, for all that is holy!' 

'The challenge is writing a dystopia. Or a utopia. This is neither.' 

I raise the thumbs down, spattered with the dried viscera of many a worthy story. I close my eyes for that which has to be done. 

'For god's sake, man! Think of the non-human character! It's central to the story and perfectly portrayed!' 

I cannot bring myself to do it. I lower the terrible weapon in my hand. 

Thumbs up for you. I know I should have let the hammer fall. But life is just too short, this story is too sweet, and the thumbs up-thumbs down voting system just too blunt. Well done. 

Hey, Rob. So I wasn't sure if this was a Dystopia or Utopia while reading it. I kind of assumed Utopia until I read your description. It was hard to tell though. The font you used was a little hard on the eyes. Not sure which it was. Also this is just me because I am not a scifi book guy at all. Movies and video games? Yeah. Not stories. But the story was just a little too boring for my tastes. Not a whole lot going on really until the end. 

With that said I thought the ending was very suspenseful and well written. The prose overall was clean and fluid and very easy to read. Scifi seems like it's your sandbox to play in. I gave you a thumbs up on this even though I'm with the first reviewer and was on the fence.

Hullo good sir,

I have read your story, and the font/formatting is still an issue, for me anyway. I had to zoom in and scroll to read left to right. I'm only mentioning this because it may have been a factor in how much I was able to enjoy reading.

The parts of the story that held my interest the most were the elements alluding to the way of life these crew members lead. Spouses being selected by captains and such, that part I found intriguing, but it was not the basis for the story. The dialogue was actually very well done, especially the whole interaction between the captain and the others. It did seem odd that your MC seemed a bit more, i duno human and less robotic than virtually everyone else on the ship. 

So, yea not a dystopia, and definately not a post-apocalypse, I get what you were trying to do but as others have already pointed out it's not exactly one or the other. I"m still on the fence about the vote right now.

I will say you have some great prose here and i'd love to read some future stories by you. 

I liked the concept but the jargon made it a tough read, especially in the beginning.  I'm assuming this is fan fiction because I've heard of tribbles from Star Trek but I don't know the Trekkie world well so I felt like I was missing something.

Most of the other comments have picked up on the slight negatives here, so I won't go back over them.  It was a solid thumbs up from me.  I wanted to read on which is always a good sign.  I thought the characters were very well done, and believable, though Angelique was a bit too good to be true by the end.  I loved Captain - utterly logical and incapable of flexible thinking.  The way of shutting him down was a bit convenient, but few of us aren't guilty of that.  The concept of sentient plantlife is good, and there was a lot here that interested me in terms of how your universe is put together.  It's well written, very engaging, flows brilliantly, and is a fun read.

Very smooth read and dead on that 4k limit!  For me, the biggest issue was how quickly things moved from one event to the next in the story.  I would have liked to see a little more detail about the events.  Of course, to do that you'd have to cut a few elemnts form the story.  As it is, I'd say you did an excellent job to fit everything inside the limit.

Good Work!

Sorry it took me so long to get around to reviewing your story!
The characters were set up well and their personalities were well represented by their dialogue. Angelique's dialogue is a bit wooden, but that's pretty in line with the highly-regimented world that she's grown up in.  Aaron and Mary have warmer, more impulsive language to fit with their personalities. Captain cannot help having a robotic voice, of course. How long have Aaron and Angelique been married? That would further justify her perceived icyness.
Also, how might the portal stablizer protect them? Does it generate some sort of field? I don't think that you need to describe its exact mechanics (goodness knows I wouldn't understand that) but you set it up as the 'gun on the wall' and "portal stabiliser" read (to me) like it was a device used to help fix the jump gates in place, rather than something that stabilizes the ship during jumps. It also seems like this crew has never been through a jump gate before ("Does anybody know how to prepare?") and there seems to be a great threat to them during a jump. Can you elaborate a bit on how travel affects them? It's good to know how high the stakes can be.

Rob,
In your introduction you said that "the story would continue if I hadn't run out of words". That particular point is glaringly obvious at the ending. Everything following Mary's seizure and eventual death (which just gets dropped on the reader's head a page later, with the words 'Mary's body') feels rushed and wrapping up in a hurry. I see I'm also not the only one who got confused by the significance of the portal. I could see it for the Chekhov's gun that it was (not your fault; I don't think it was realistically avoidable), but I didn't quite understand how it got fired. With another thousand words or so, I feel, this story would work as a standalone piece. I completely understand what you mean about working in the universe you know, but the readers don't - I'm currently facing a similar challenge writing an independent short story in the world of my novel.

I had some trouble with Angelique's character. At points, she sounded so robotic I'd suspected her to be at least part AI. Her revelation at the end, I suppose, partially justifies why she's such a stickler for rules, but she still goes from Vulcan to warm and cuddly a bit too fast.

Aside from the above issues, I liked your storytelling a lot. The scenes in the lab I could see very vividly, and there was some very gentle and sensual writing about the plant's reactions to Mary and Aaron touching. The story did indeed read 'Trekkie', and, just to avoid misunderstanding, I mean that in the nicest way. An entire novel of that universe would be a very interesting read.

I'll be straight with you - although I think you've done a good job, I'm not going to vote on this piece, mainly because, as many have pointed out, the dystopian/utopian theme is simply not there.

Cheers,
Maria

This presents a couple of interesting ideas. I enjoy stories about new life forms, explorations, and moral issues. The choice to make the focal lifeform a plant was a good one. The story does feel a bit unfinished, but I understand that is part of the problem with those word restrictions. I don't think it really fits the challenge. It is science-fiction, but I don't see an exploration of what I would recognize as dystopian/utopian themes. 

Much of the story is driven by dialogue.  That is a fine choice, but the implementation isn't to my taste. If too much of it is untethered from character, exposition, etc., it begins to disconnect from the story. The rhythm is off and it feels awkward.  This is, of course, a matter of preference. Integrating it, breaking it up, or maybe even limiting some of the "said,replied,answered," tags might smooth it out. 

As I said, I like the premise and the ideas. You've obviously given the setting a lot of thought and that shows. 

Hello, Rob! Thank you for sharing this story.

I like your imagination and creativity. The Tribils were interesting and I clearly pictured them in my head - but simply stating the vegetation was "turquoise and purple" leaves me wanting more details. I know one should not be too wordy and let the pacing suffer in short stories but it is an alien planet and we, as readers, truly need to understand your vision. Considering that the protagonist is a biologist some more information would be nice. (I am aware you provide more details later on but I wanted it to come earlier. Again - this is simply personal preference).

The prose could have been better formatted, with properly aligned lines, but that’s only a minor detail.

Even though you say it would have been longer if you had more words I feel it is complete. You could have condensed the prose if anything. It feels a bit diluted at times. I’m quite curious as to what you wanted to add.

I also wonder about its attributes as dystopian fiction. The regulations certainly made the humans live confined lives where certain freedoms were taken from them – and the captain added to that confinement – but overall it seemed the only thing really bugging the protagonist was that he was not assigned with the mating partner he wanted.

Luckily there was a lot to enjoy! The subtle affection between Aaron and Mary was a nice detail. The overall prose, even though it could have been more condensed and have more details at times, was clean and easy to read. The story, though not hooking me on the very first page, was interesting and I enjoyed reading it until the last page.

Also, I know it is interesting to write about what you're familiar with (in this case this story takes place in your own universe that you used for other fiction) but doing something entirely new would be more rewarding for you as a writer. It's dangerous to get too fixed in the same patterns when writing. I think you did a good job writing this story – I do – it’s just a head’s up for next time. Versatile writers are the best.

Regards, Fredrik